• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.146-173
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• 2014

Extant studies have explained that firm's innovations including technological product and process innovations contribute to its competitive advantage and growth, thereby supporting competitiveness and growth of industry. These studies, however, have focused mainly on the role and effect of technological change that is primarily measured by the patent numbers and R&D intensity. Aside from these traditional streams, there has been growing interest on the impact by various dimensions of innovation including non-technological innovations. Apart from the discussions on the dimensions and scope of innovation, stages or processes of innovation also have been studied. Extant studies on innovation process model, however, has limited its interests in the structure of the transformation of knowledge. This study have established a comprehensive model embracing operational and financial performance to investigate the causal paths between innovation and firm performance. Using multi-level generalized linear model with path analysis, this study have found results as follows: First, the processes from innovative activities to innovation output and outcomes including operational and financial performance at firm level were verified. Secondly, the influence of innovation decreases gradually as the distance away from the direct outputs of the innovation increase in the direction of financial outcomes. Third, the effect of innovation on the sales growth rate is higher for small businesses than for medium-sized businesses. The effect of innovation on the profit rate, however, is significant only for medium-sized businesses. For large businesses, innovation has no positive significant impact on any financial performance at all. Fourth, Fourth, the appropriability of innovation has positive impacts on innovative performance, patent applications, and operational performance.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.4881-4894
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• 2014

This study selected 83 manufacturing firms that had been delisted from the KOSDAQ market from 2009 to 2012 and the sample firms for the two-paired sampling method were compared with 83 normal firms running businesses with same items or in same industry. The 75 financial ratios for five years immediately before delisting were used for Mean Difference Analysis with those of normal firms. Fifteen variables assumed to be significant variables for five consecutive years out of the analysis were used to in the Dichotomous Classification Technique, Logistic Regression Analysis and Discriminant Analysis. As a result of those three analyses, the Logistic Regression Analysis model was found to show the greatest discrimination. This study is differentiated from previous studies as it assumed that the firm's failure proceeded slowly over long period of time and it tried to predict the firm's failure earlier using the five years' historical data immediately before failure, whereas previous studies predicted it using three years' data only. This study is also differentiated from the proceeding comparative studies by its statistically complex Multi-Variate Analysis and Dichotomous Classification Analysis, which general stakeholders can easily approach.

• Fourth Industrial Review
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2021

Purpose - This case study analyzes the internationalization strategy and innovation strategy as key factors contributing to the business success of CAP, a small and medium-sized manufacturing company in Korea producing auto parts such as wipers. This study describes the diversification strategies conducted by CAP Corporation and highlights the company's core competencies that have largely contributed to their global competitive success. Research design, data, and methodology - This paper provides in-depth case study on how CAP was able to grow into a hidden champion company, focusing on their strategies since its establishment. In particular, by analyzing the success factors centering on CAP's aggressive innovation strategy and internationalization strategy, it presents guidelines for small and medium-sized enterprises in Asian countries to become a Hidden Champion company. Result - CAP's product technology has successfully established innovative system on their product called 'vertebra spring' to distribute uniform pressure to the rubber to ensure performance as well as durability of their products. In order to continue benefiting from utilizing core competence and to continue pursuing technological advancement in the wiper industry, CAP has launched a wide range of products (flat blade, conventional blade, hybrid blade) applicable to 95% of the vehicle in the market. Conclusion - Taken together, CAP has many aspects of a hidden champion company by investing in R&D up to 8% of its annual sales to R&D investment even during the crises situation. This number is about 3.36 times higher than the average ratio of listed companies in Korea. Furthermore, the leadership of the management team as well as their vision toward the global market and strong commitment to innovation enabled CAP to become the world's fifth-largest wiper and Asia's No. 1 wiper manufacturer.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.151-178
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• 2014

The objective of the present case study is to analysis how effectively Hilti, which is a former family firm owned and managed by a family in Liechtenstein as a tiny european country, a land sandwiched between Switzerland and Austria, has made a global market success. Liechtenstein has $160km^2$ land and about 36,000 residents. Despite its small size of country, however, Hilti Corporation doesn't view its location as a liability in its business strategy. Hilti is a global leading provider of professional power tools in building, mining, civil engineering etc. Also, Hilti is a firm with a clear vision to become the leading industry partner for construction professionals and building installations through customer focus, high quality equipment, and tools and systems specially designed for specific jobs. This study considered Hilti as a good case, which verifies that born-conditions, endogenous factors according to Michael Porters diamond model does not decisive role more for international competitiveness of firms. Lessons from Hilti are that in order to obtain and sustain the global competitiveness of small and medium-sized firms in Korean manufacturing sector under high production cost, they have to do actively innovative. Also they can give to customers newer and higher customer-values than competitors in abroad give. The case summarizes that the strategy of Hilti for the global market success is comprised of several factors: Technological and organizational innovation, and a clear customer-value oriented business strategy and its implementation. Innovation and its integration into marketing for the customers value creation is central to Hilti's Success. The present case study is expected to provide insights and implication for many firms in Korea that are seeking to secure global presence and market success.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.7
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• pp.360-375
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• 2019

This paper tries to study the ecosystem after constructing the network of the continuing transactions associated with distribution industry with the data of more than 50 thousands firms provided by the Korean enterprise data (KED) for 2015. After applying the clustering method, one of social network analysis tools, we find the firms in the network grouped into 732 clusters occupying about 80% of whole distribution industry sales in KED data. The firms in a cluster have most of their transactions with other firms in the cluster. But the clusters have smaller firm numbers in the cluster and sales portion of the biggest firms in the industry than the case of the manufacturing industry. The Input-output analysis for the biggest distribution firms show that the small and medium size enterprise(SME)s have very high sale dependency on a main firm in some clusters. This fact implies more efficient fair transaction policies within the clusters. And small number of big distribution firms have very high rear production linkage effects on SMEs or on the 10th or 31th group with high portion of SME employment. They should be considered important in the SME growth and employment policies.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.76-91
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• 2019

There have been many studies to examine the patterns in innovations reflecting industry-specific characteristics from an evolutionary economics perspective. The purpose of this study is to identify industry-specific differences in product innovation patterns and determinants of innovation performance. For this, Korean manufacturing is classified into high-tech industries and low-tech industries according to technology intensity. It is also pointed out that existing research does not reflect the decision-making process of firms' R&D implementations. In order to solve this problem, this study presents a Heckman sample selection model and a double-hurdle model as alternatives, and analyzes data from 1,637 firms in the 2014 Survey on Technology of SMEs. As a result, it was confirmed that the determinants and patterns of manufacturing in small and medium-size enterprise (SME) product innovation are significantly different between high-tech and low-tech industries. Also, through an extended empirical model, we found that there exist a sample selection bias and a hurdle-like threshold in the decision-making process. In this study, the industry-specific features and patterns of product innovation are examined from a multi-sided perspective, and it is meaningful that the decision-making process for manufacturing SMEs' R&D performance can be better understood.

• Archives of design research
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.177-190
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• 2004

The purpose of this study is to provide domestic small and medium manufacturing businesses with effective ways of introducing and promoting design management, earnestly, as a key strategy for raising corporate competitiveness. For the purpose, this researcher discussed the management property of small and medium businesses, the introducing process and method and the necessity of promoting design management in small and medium businesses. Then the researcher reviewed and analyzed existing empirical studies to know the current status of design introduction and design management promotion i domestic small and medium businesses. Results of the study can be described as below. Prerequisite to the successful introduction by domestic small and medium businesses of design management are three CEO determinations - the firm will to the necessity of design introduction, the firm conviction in design efficacy, and the clear recognition of the existential value of design - and the establishment of at least five infrastructures -design organization, CDO, designers, design policy, and design strategy. For the promoting and succeeding in the execution of design management, design management system should have established based on such determinations and infrastructures, and CEOs should have design management mind firmly established and driven and realized next activities in the process of product development. 1) Set the principle of design priority in a new product development and establish an appropriate production system and environment. 2) Decide a new design development as the top-priority task of management and then practice it in a strategic way. 3) Be positive in design investment while accepting design management as a concept related not to cost, but to investment. 4) Utilize design extensively under the understanding that design management has something to do with corporate design system as a whole. 5) Treat design as the most valuable resource of business under the recognition that design is the most important determinant of corporate competitiveness.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.121-135
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• 1999

This study investigated the location conditions, spatial linkage structures, and firm specific problems of small firms of the Greater Cincinnati metropolitan area by sectors and by areal distribution. The major locational advantages were closeness to customers and suppliers followed by accessibility to inter-state highways. These results were supported by spatial linkage structures in which within-region linkages occupied a greater portions of linkage, showing the importance of small firms in the regional economy. The linkage patterns showed distance decay effect with high elasticity. While there were no significant differences of locational conditions and spatial linkage structures of small firms between core and peripheral area, a slight difference was identified among sectors. Chemical related manufacturing firms show different locational conditions and spatial linkage structure with weak within-local linkages. The main locational disadvantages were lack of qualified labor, undesirable neighborhood, heavy tax, and space shortage. Considering the biggest problems such as lack of qualified labor, difficulties in sales/marketing, low accessibility to financial resource, and technological inability, the inter-related cooperative business networks among firms and regional institutions, consulting companies, chamber of commerce, and universities are needed to stimulate regional economic development and survival of small firms.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.1-25
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• 2017

Despite high uncertainty on financial return, firms have continuously increased their investment on technologies because they recognize the potential value of technology investment in terms of enhancing operational efficiency and sustaining competitive advantage. Notably, an individual technology investment pattern or strategy within an industry may ultimately lead to significant differences in business performance. Hence, we first categorized technology investment into traditional research and development investment and information technology investment. Afterward, we examined the effects of each pattern with combination of the two types of technology investment on business performance according to firm size and position in the supply chain through fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. Data collected from 562 manufacturing firms in Korea were used in the analysis. Results showed that large-sized firms were slightly affected with microscopic patterns in their technology investments, whereas small firms were highly affected with their technology investment patterns and their positions in the supply chain. The findings implied that a small enterprise requires an appropriate technology investment strategy to achieve successful business outcomes.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.1-15
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• 2016

This study has analyzed predication capabilities leveraging multi-variate model, logistic regression model, and artificial neural network model based on financial information of medium-small sized companies list in KOSDAQ. 83 delisted companies from 2009 to 2012 and 83 normal companies, i.e. 166 firms in total were sampled for the analysis. Modelling with training data was mobilized for 100 companies inlcuding 50 delisted ones and 50 normal ones at random out of the 166 companies. The rest of samples, 66 companies, were used to verify accuracies of the models. Each model was designed by carrying out T-test with 79 financial ratios for the last 5 years and identifying 9 significant variables. T-test has shown that financial profitability variables were major variables to predict a financial risk at an early stage, and financial stability variables and financial cashflow variables were identified as additional significant variables at a later stage of insolvency. When predication capabilities of the models were compared, for training data, a logistic regression model exhibited the highest accuracy while for test data, the artificial neural networks model provided the most accurate results. There are differences between the previous researches and this study as follows. Firstly, this study considered a time-series aspect in light of the fact that failure proceeds gradually. Secondly, while previous studies constructed a multivariate discriminant model ignoring normality, this study has reviewed the regularity of the independent variables, and performed comparisons with the other models. Policy implications of this study is that the reliability for the disclosure documents is important because the simptoms of firm's fail woule be shown on financial statements according to this paper. Therefore institutional arragements for restraing moral laxity from accounting firms or its workers should be strengthened.